


Disturbance

by Yevynaea



Series: Lost in the Woods [6]
Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anger, Angst, Attempted Kidnapping, Beast Wirt, Being Lost, Estrangement, Family, Family Estrangement, Fear, Future Fic, Gen, I suppose, Memories, One Shot, Shapeshifting, Siblings, bc i need that tag, idk what else to tag this as, sort of, that would be a useful tag, there we go, what's the opposite of family bonding, you'd think i'd know what to tag these things as by now but nooo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-11
Updated: 2015-02-11
Packaged: 2018-03-11 17:10:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3331805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yevynaea/pseuds/Yevynaea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it feels like the lies will catch up to him before anything else does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Disturbance

Sometimes it feels like the lies will catch up to him before anything else does. Greg’s been lying, been pretending, since the day the lantern went out.

Pretending he doesn’t know what the Unknown really is. Pretending he doesn’t hear Wirt and Beatrice whispering about whether or not he can go home (he can’t, of course, but they like to lie, too, because sometimes people trick themselves into believing lies are true when they last long enough). Pretending he doesn’t see how Wirt’s eyes always find the lantern, always stick to it like he wants to grab it and hide it from them. Pretending he doesn’t see how tight the Woodsman holds his axe when Wirt is near, pretending not to notice when Mr. Waldfogel puts sage over the doorframes to ward off evil, pretending he doesn’t see the Edelwood branches that try so hard to keep his feet rooted in place every time he goes further than the tree line. Pretending not to know that Wirt is always in the shadows, watching.

He pretends not to notice, not to see, not to know, and the lies weigh on him almost as much as the bundles of wood he carries on his back as he grows up and grows older. When time starts again after his confrontation with his brother, Greg decides he’s done pretending.

He cuts away the roots that try to wrap around his ankles. He turns to stare back when he feels Wirt’s eyes on him in the woods. He takes the old dried stems of sage down and replaces them with charm bags made of scraps of cloth, filled with sage and salt and cinnamon. He moves the lantern out of Wirt’s reach when Wirt becomes transfixed. He wraps his stolen scarf around his neck and pulls it up over his nose to make it more visible, finds an old grey hat in an empty room of the house and puts it on because the old Woodsman has no use for it anymore anyway, so if Greg takes the name he might as well look the part.

“Stop that.” He says, in between bites of an apple. Wirt strides out from behind a tree where he’d been watching in silence, and Greg eyes the long shadow his brother casts in the light of the setting sun, then nudges the fallen Edelwood in front of him with one foot. “I’ll ask Beatrice and Peregrine to help me get it all back to the house tomorrow.”

“Okay.” Wirt replies, tonelessly, only an acknowledgment, nothing more. They fall into silence not quite companionable anymore.

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

Peregrine brings his son along the next day, sits him in one of the bedrooms with a book and firm instructions not to leave the house. So, of course, the boy leaves the house.

Wirt’s watching Beatrice chop the Edelwood tree into bundles for the others to carry home when he senses the disturbance of small feet entering the woods, feels the trees reach out with spindling branches for the blood they recognize as the kin of the bluebird, their claim. _The child belongs to us_ , they whisper, _the child belongs to you_. The words that aren’t quite words reach Wirt through soil, through leaves, and he extends his sight further into the forest, watching the youngest Waldfogel wander away from the house in search of his father. He’s going the wrong way, and the Beast wonders for a moment how long it would take for the child to be lost, if no one found him. He doesn’t notice when his companion stops chopping at the Edelwood that already exists.

“How long do you think this one’ll last, Wirt?” Beatrice asks as she wipes sweat from her forehead, carefully avoiding letting any bitterness seep into her voice, but Wirt’s attention is gone, his eyes are focused somewhere far off, and Beatrice stands taller, hands still holding the axe. “Wirt?”

He turns back to her, eyes glowing like empty stars even in the morning sunlight. And then the Beast is gone, behind a tree and into the woods, and there’s a sinking feeling like river rocks settling in Beatrice’s stomach. She looks at the half-chopped tree at her feet, then in the direction Wirt went, and she clenches her jaw, abandoning the Edelwood.

She takes the axe, because something in her says she’ll need it.

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

The Beast isn’t quite what Noah was expecting. Then again, Noah isn’t quite sure what he was expecting in the first place, so he supposes this shouldn’t be surprising. Most people say the Beast is a monster, cruel and cold. Da says the Beast is someone only grown-ups can deal with. Auntie Beatrice says that the Beast is a boy, an unlucky boy who became a monster trying to make a good choice. Grandmama and Granddad say that Noah should always stay out of the woods, because the Beast may have once been a boy but he wasn’t very much a boy anymore.

When he meets the Beast face to face, Noah doesn’t know what kind of boy the creature could have possibly been.

“You shouldn’t be here.” The Beast says, staring down at Noah and he’s tall, but not very tall for a monster.

“I’m looking for my dad.” Noah replies, quiet and not sure yet whether he should be afraid.

“Peregrine.” The Beast says, like a guess, and Noah nods. “You’re lost, then.”

“Oh.”

“He’s that way.” The Beast points in the opposite direction from the one Noah had just been walking in. “He returned to the house.”

“Oh.” The boy repeats, looking where the Beast is pointing. “Will you walk me back?”

“I don’t think Peregrine would be very happy if I did.”

“Why not?” Noah asks, turning back to look up at the creature again.

“Do you know who I am?” The Beast asks almost incredulously.

“You’re the Beast.” Noah says, proud of himself for knowing. “And you know the way back to Aunt Bea’s house, right?”

“...Yes.”

“Then you can walk me back, so I don’t get more lost.” Noah says matter-of-factly. The Beast eyes him in silence for a moment, then gives a little sigh.

“Fine.” The Beast starts walking, and Noah follows close on his heels, stopping only once, to pick up a little black turtle that wanders out in front of him. “Put that down.” The Beast orders, and Noah does, letting the turtle crawl lazily back into the undergrowth.

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

Beatrice runs after Wirt, but with no way to know which way he went, there isn’t much she can do to find him. She emerges from the woods and finds herself behind the house, grits her teeth and runs back into the trees but they seem to have changed, branches intertwining into walls that weren’t there before.

“Wirt!” Beatrice calls, kicking at the tips of Edelwood roots that wriggle out of the ground and stretch toward her. “Wirt! _Beast_!” Growling in frustration, the woman turns, runs back out into the clearing around the house.

“Noah!” She hears her brother’s voice call out fearfully from around the building, and her blood runs cold and her heartbeat is loud in her ears. _He wouldn’t_. She hurries around to the front of the house where her brother is just about to step into the forest, while Greg stands at the door, lantern in hand and dread in his eyes. Even Jason Funderberker is croaking nervously at Greg’s feet.

“Wirt left.” Beatrice tells the others, handing off the axe to Greg. “I was chopping up the Edelwood and,” she shakes her head, trying to clear it, “he got all distracted. Then he just, left.”

Peregrine is moving even before he’s turned all the way back around, sprinting into the woods and Beatrice follows, cursing the fact that he’s so much faster at only three years younger. She shifts, feathers sprouting from her skin, arms becoming wings as she shrinks down, flying past her brother with ease, but he’s too panicked to put the focus into following her example. Her wings are beating quickly, her heart still feels too big for her chest and she can hear two sets of footsteps trailing after her. Greg still has the damn lantern.

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

“Do you have a name?” Noah asks, and the sun is inching higher in the sky and he’s sure they weren’t so far from the house that they wouldn’t be back yet. Maybe the Beast isn’t as good a guide as Noah thought he’d be.

“Not anymore.” The Beast replies. “I don’t need one anymore.”

“Hm.” Noah frowns. “You should have a name.”

“I don’t need a name.” The Beast insists. Noah frowns more, but doesn’t argue, just keeps walking at the Beast’s heels in dejected silence. Finally, the Beast sighs. Noah’s noticed that he does that a lot. “My name was Wirt.”

“Nice to meet you, Wirt.” Noah says cheerily, stopping in his tracks and sticking out one hand for a handshake, like Aunt Deryn has taught him is polite. Wirt looks back, hesitates before returning the gesture, and Noah grins despite the chill of the Beast’s shadowy palm, and the way Wirt’s fingers wrap too-far around Noah’s hand.

Wirt doesn’t break the handshake, just holds onto Noah’s hand for a moment. He pauses, looking at the woods ahead of them, then shaking his head violently and changing direction.

“This way.” He says, and Noah looks at the way they’d been going, and then up at the Beast, who’s almost pulling him along by his hand.

“You _do_ know the way, right?” Noah asks, and Wirt nods.

“Yes. The way we were going would have taken us deeper into the wood.”

“You were lost.” Noah grins, but the Beast shakes his head slightly.

“No.” He replies, so quiet that Noah doesn’t hear. “But you would’ve been.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

The forest retreats, branches untangling to let them pass, roots digging further into the ground instead of out of it, and Beatrice’s first thought is that they’re too late. She sees a flash of movement through the trees, hears voices she knows, and she shifts before she lands, dropping the last few inches to the ground, facing Wirt from across the clearing she’s found herself in. He freezes when he sees her, looks over his shoulder and Beatrice takes a step forward, intending to run forward and shove him aside to see what he’s done. But then something moves behind him, and Wirt steps sideways so that his arm, hidden behind him at first but she’d barely noticed in her fear and her fury, is in clear sight. Clutching to Wirt’s hand is Noah, safe and sound, not an Edelwood branch to be seen.

Beatrice looks at how tightly Wirt’s fingers are wrapped around her nephew’s wrist, notes how wide his eyes had gone when he’s caught sight of her, like a child with a hand in the cookie jar. And her relief solidifies into resolve. Peregrine catches up to her, followed soon by Greg, and Beatrice goes to the latter, taking the axe from him.

“Bea--” Greg starts, a warning, and she shakes her head without looking away from where the Beast stands across the clearing. Peregrine is shaking, out of anger and terror in equal measure, and he steps forward with fists clenched.

“Give me my son.” He says lowly, and something changes. Wirt laughs, his posture shifts and his head tilts to the side as if curious.

“What makes you think I am obliged to listen to you, bluebird?” The Beast asks. Noah’s face scrunches up in confusion and worry, he looks from his father to the figure holding him, and back again.

“Don’t do this, Wirt.” Greg pleads, knuckles almost white around the handle of the lantern. Wirt doesn’t respond, but they all see him hesitate. He looks down like he’s not sure what he was doing a minute ago.

“Just give us Noah.” Beatrice says, inching forward, axe held down at her side. “Please.”

Noah himself starts to wriggle his arm free of the Beast’s grasp, and Wirt lets him go, stepping back so that Peregrine can rush forward to scoop the boy into his arms. Father and son retreat under the creature’s watchful gaze, while Beatrice is careful to stay between them.

“I…” Wirt stops, lets out a shaky breath that sounds almost like a sob, but they all know better. The Beast cannot cry. “I was trying to take him home. I almost didn’t. But I was _trying_.”

“Okay.” Beatrice nods. “It’s okay. Noah’s okay.”

Wirt nods, and retreats into the woods.

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

They don’t see him for a long while after. The lantern is almost empty by the time Beatrice and Greg go back for the rest of the Edelwood, and they don’t pretend not to notice that they see Wirt just beyond the trees circling the house when they return. He watches them, and they watch right back, going about their business, chopping the wood pieces smaller and smaller but always keeping one eye on the Beast, until he finally leaves.

“He isn’t...he isn’t safe to be around anymore.” Beatrice says, softly, sadly, and Greg smiles the same way.

“Has he ever been?” He asks.

“Once.” The bluebird replies, the word barely carrying to the Woodsman’s ears. He hears, though, and he nods.

“Once.” He agrees.

Hiding in the shadows a ways away from the house, letting the wind bring their words to him, the Beast huffs a bitter little laugh. When he speaks, his voice is in equal parts brittle wood snapping under a shoe heel, and sap dripping sticky and dark into fresh snow.

“ _Once_.”

**Author's Note:**

> so there's one more chapter for me to add to The Calm before the Storm, and then there'll be two more parts in the series to finish it off. thanks to everyone who's been reading and commenting!! ^u^


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